Category Archives: Psychedelics

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I interview friends, colleagues, and experts, on harm reduction and its implications in Canadian society, from the theory to the practice, to the practical. I am a Member-at-Large for Outreach for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and writer for Karmik, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, and the Marijuana Party of Canada. Here I interview Daniel Greig, part 1.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen:How did you get and interest in Canadian drug policy?

Daniel Greig:My interest is predominantly in the realm of psychedelics. I have, first and foremost, an academic and ethical interest in studying these because they have [a] potential for healing people [that] current medications dont. So, we should be studying these substances.

I am in Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy on the side [as part of this project]. Thats how I got involved.

Jacobsen: If this is on the side, and now more in the main for you, what are your main set of responsibilities?

Greig:My main responsibility is research on psychedelics.

Jacobsen: What does the main research state on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics?

Greig:For psilocybin, there are a whole bunch of studies. There was one that has earned a lot of press. It finds lasting personality change from the transcendental/mystical experiences.

There s a measurable difference in peoples personalities in the domain of openness after a single use of the substance. The paper that this is in mentions the only comparable finding was 3 months spent meditating in the mountains.

That was the only comparable experimental manipulation to produce a measurable change in personality. It is good compared to other medications, which dont show [nearly as profound] changes in peoples personality or behaviour.

There are [palliative] medications [that focuses on symptoms]. Psychedelics are not used [in this way and] produce measurable differences, rather than [effectively making people] drugged up all of the time. Thats a good thing. People can [heal and] get off them.

Jacobsen: That makes me think. First, thats remarkable. Second, many Canadians and more Americans dont believe in evolutionary theory. Of course, evolution happened to produce us. An argument could be made that mind-altering substances could have a co-evolution with human beings.

Maybe, 10,000 years ago with the foundation of the agricultural revolution, even further with the Aboriginal Dreamtime narratives from 40,000 years popping up.

Could there be a decent argument made from the obvious showcase of changes equivalent to three months of meditation with psilocybin, and that were almost wired up for these experiences?

Greig:Definitely, the psychedelic experiences are as much a part of the properties of the brain and [our] physiology as [they are of] the drug. People have engaged in ritualistic alterations of consciousness, which have produced similar hallucinations and benefits.

People used psychedelics back in the day. As far as that having some purposeful connection, or humans being wired to take them, you get into a [difficult philosophical problem that isnt really necessary to consider]. Maybe, it is an interface for human consciousness with the planet, which is a legitimate theory [presented] for co-evolution.

It might be an entailment of [developing] theories, [but] I dont think that its relevant, for or against, the uses of these things in general. The bottom line, they [may] have wonderful effects for the mind.

Jacobsen: What do you consider the core principle or value of CSSDP?

Greig:I will talk about psychedelics first and then the [organization]. It is a new field. There will be more people doing the research in the future. [CSSDP] is good for networking students. It is good for building these longer-lasting networks of [similarly interested] people.

There are a lot of people in the organization like Evan Loster, Gonzo Nieto, Andras Lenart, and Michelle Thiessen. [who are] all interested in psychedelics. It is a good network. We have been able to connect and contribute ideas to each other.

[It is also beneficial to facilitate the advocacy of] youth voice[s] [on issues that effect them]. They are listened to the least.

[When it comes to drug policy], people [often] say, What about the kids, man?! Who isnt for the kids? Advocacy for the youth is another important aspect.

Jacobsen: Where do you hope CSSDP goes into the future?

Greig:I hope it continues to grow. That more networks happen[ing] with other drug policy groups. [Like] MAPS [a growing number of] harm reduction groups. I hope the branches extend [and] I hope [that] facilitate[s] quicker reform for drug policy [as much is desperately needed]

Original publication on http://www.cssdp.org.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. He works as an Associate Editor and Contributor for Conatus News, Editor and Contributor to The Good Men Project, a Board Member, Executive International Committee (International Research and Project Management) Member, and as the Chair of Social Media for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, Executive Administrator and Writer for Trusted Clothes, and Councillor in the Athabasca University Students Union. He contributes to the Basic Income Earth Network, The Beam, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Check Your Head, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, The Voice Magazine, and Trusted Clothes. If you want to contact Scott: [emailprotected]; website: http://www.in-sightjournal.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/InSight_Journal.

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Daniel Greig, Canadian Drug Policy, Responsibilities, and Psychedelics - The Good Men Project (blog)

Magic mushrooms cant cure cancer, but they can alleviate the anxiety and existential dread that come along with the disease.

At least, thats the apparent conclusion from a pair of studies published in late 2016, wherein participants who had been diagnosed with both cancer and clinical depression or anxiety were administered psilocybin mushrooms within a controlled, living room-esque environment.

The psychological effects of psilocybin were not only positive, but enduring. Most participants ranked the experience among the most meaningful of their lives, and six months after taking the dose, 65 percent had almost fully recovered from their depression, and 57 percent from their anxiety. In contrast, antidepressants have been observed to help only 40 percent of terminal cancer patients in past studiesmaking them about as effective as a placebo.

However, as with other psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin remains a Schedule I drug, deemed by the federal government to have a high potential for abuse and no medical value whatsoever. Yet that hasnt stopped researchers from administering more than 2,000 doses of the much-touted magic mushrooms in clinical settings since the early 90s, during which time no participants have reported any lasting medical or psychiatric issues.

Instead, most studies seem to confirm what recreational users have suspected for some time nowthat psychedelic drugs can help us, at least if taken under the right circumstances, and with this new wave of advanced psychedelic research, were beginning to understand why.

Both mushrooms and LSD, or acid, can reliably inspire religious or otherwise transcendental experiences in users, often resulting in a detachment from worldly concerns and a loss of self-identity called ego death. Another 2016 study suggests LSD accomplishes this by increasing global connectivity in the brain, thus removing perceived boundaries between ones inner and outer world.

Additional studies provide evidence for the drugs effectiveness in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcoholism and other addictions, though the effects dont typically last more than six months after dosing. Perhaps more impressive are the findings that psilocybin can actually alter peoples personalitiesusually thought to be set in stone during adulthoodby making them more open, a trait associated with broad-mindedness and creativity.

Theres a sacredness or a reverence to [the] experience, noted Roland Griffiths, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who authored one of the studies. Although the effects of the drugs are gone by the end of the day, the memories of these experiences and the attributions made to them endure.

Indeed, the lasting effects of psilocybin and LSD, as observed in Griffiths study and others, can help anyone, not just those struggling with cancer or clinical depression. Neither drug has much potential for addiction, and the only significant associated risks are from accidents or anxiety attacks, which can be particularly damaging for users with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Researchers screened participants for such risk factors and provided a safe, encouraging environment for their trips.

Thanks to an increased understanding of these controversial hallucinogens and a groundswell movement of pro-psychedelic advocacy groups, it isnt farfetched to imagine a future where mental health patients can drop acid or mushrooms outside of a research setting, perhaps under the supervision of a doctor or other trained professional.

It will no doubt take time for government policy to catch up with these illuminating findings, meaning legal psychedelics will still take yearsor even decadesto hit shelves. But if the research keeps progressing, how long can we ignore the science? Under this administration, that may remain to be seen.

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THE FUTURE OF PSYCHEDELICS: Are LSD and Mushrooms The New Prozac? - Dope Magazine

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I interview friends, colleagues, and experts, on harm reduction and its implications in Canadian society, from the theory to the practice, to the practical. I am a Member-at-Large for Outreach for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and writer for Karmik, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, and the Marijuana Party of Canada. Here I interview Gonzo Nieto, part 1.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become interested in being involved in drug policy in Canada?

Gonzo Nieto:My interest with drug policy began with my own use, which started with cannabis as a teen. A lot of my peers were using drugs, both in high school and university. That all began to get me interested in the phenomenon of drug use in general.

What really caught my interest was psychedelics, after I had my first experience with psilocybin mushrooms. I began to educate myself pretty extensively about psychedelics. I would spend hours listening to lectures and talks by various people, reading books, and browsing forums and seeing what was there in terms of other peoples experiences.

This got the ball rolling as I began to discover how large and diverse the field of drug policy is, and I fell further and further down the rabbit hole.

Jacobsen: With respect to personal use, how much knowledge did you have beforehand about medical and psychological effects?

Nieto:Not very much, I didnt come into drug use in a very informed way. It was youthful curiosity and blissful ignorance that led me to try cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms. These experiences stoked my curiosity, and then I got to educating myself more. When I started smoking pot, I didnt know much other than that my friends were using it.

When some of my peers were using psychedelics in high school, I mostly recall hearing myths and lies about psychedelics. I remember hearing kids at school say that magic mushrooms make your brain bleed, and thats why you hallucinate. Silly stuff like that. I remember others saying it was a fun trip, describing psychedelics like the next level up from pot, which I came to learn is not the case theyre completely different.

But like most people, I wasnt very well educated about drugs prior to encountering and trying them. I didnt have good drug education at my school, at least good by my standards what we got was police officers come to our school to scare us about the scourge of drugs.

Jacobsen: How did you get involved with Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy?

Nieto:After I graduated university, my partner motivated me to start writing a column on drugs using the knowledge I had amassed during the previous five years of my undergrad. I began writing a column in the student newspaper, which I calledTurning Inward.

The column went really well. Pretty much every time I published an article, it became one of the most read articles in the student newspaper for that week. I continued writing articles regularly for about seven months.

One of the articles that I wrote was calledMDMA: A Guide to Harm Reduction. I wrote it because several friends that previous week had asked me questions about MDMA that, to me, were fairly basic because of what I had been learning and reading about. I realized this sort of stuff wasnt common knowledge for most of my peers.

CSSDP shared my article on Twitter. I contacted CSSDP to thank them for sharing it and to ask how I could get involved. They responded that I should try to attend their conference coming up in Toronto. At the conference, they were electing new members to the organizations board, so I decided to put my name in the hat.

Jacobsen: What do you consider the core principle of CSSDP?

Nieto:Primarily, I would say the core value is the idea that drug use should not be treated as a criminal justice issue, but rather as an issue of public health and social cohesion.

Jacobsen: Two philosophies compete with regards to how to deal with issues like youth drug use, the zero tolerance approach, and the harm reduction model. Which do you prefer, and why?

Nieto:I stand by the harm reduction model, without question. In the debates around drug use, these two models are sometimes presented as though they are equally valid in some sense, but I think theres a strong case to be made that the punitive approach is in denial of reality.

That perspective is based on the assumption that some set of actions could be taken which would result in total abstinence across the board. Thats just not true, as demonstrated by the decades that precede us.

Drug use appears to be a core component of the human species. To say that human drug use dates back tens of thousands of years is probably a conservative estimate. Any recorded history of humans shows humans using drugs. Its not a new phenomenon. What is relatively new is outlawing and punishing drug use, and theres an argument to be made that the punishments in place for drug crimes cause far more damage to the individual and society than the use of drugs does in the first place.

The harm reduction model recognizes that, no matter how refined the attempts at prevention may be, some people will still choose to use drugs, and there needs to be education and services in place that help reduce the preventable harms associated with that drug use.Harm reduction meets people where they are rather than telling them what they should or should not do. It says, If you do use, heres some information and services to ensure your safety and to help minimize preventable harms.

Harm reduction meets people where they are rather than telling them what they should or should not do. It says, If you do use, heres some information and services to ensure your safety and to help minimize preventable harms.

Original publication on http://www.cssdp.org.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. He works as an Associate Editor and Contributor for Conatus News, Editor and Contributor to The Good Men Project, a Board Member, Executive International Committee (International Research and Project Management) Member, and as the Chair of Social Media for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, Executive Administrator and Writer for Trusted Clothes, and Councillor in the Athabasca University Students Union. He contributes to the Basic Income Earth Network, The Beam, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Check Your Head, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, The Voice Magazine, and Trusted Clothes. If you want to contact Scott: [emailprotected]; website: http://www.in-sightjournal.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/InSight_Journal.

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Gonzo Nieto, Drug Policy, Medical and Psychological Effects - The Good Men Project (blog)

Academic compulsion and peer-pressure adding to the woes

Psychedelic drugs are not the only cause of concern, high school students and youngsters are addicted to things like cough syrups, glue and whiteners. Recently the governments focus has only been on drug peddlers and celebrities but, the real focus should begin at home and schools.

I have patients as young as seven-years-old, who are addicted to medications like cough syrup or stationary items. This is due to the complete lack of parental guidance, opines Dr Namita Singh, neuropsychologist at Apollo Hospitals.

Further, she said that if the child is prescribed a medication for a time, h/she continues to use the medicine even after that. Excessive use of such medications can lead to failure of vital organs, like the liver, she warns.

The schooling system is also to be blamed, she argues. Because of the hectic curriculum children are constantly under pressure and they opt for immediate relief from it.

I even tried to contact some schools to conduct an awareness session for high school students about sexual education and usage of drugs but, they didnt seem interested in this.

Educational institutions are only concerned about their syllabus but, they are hugely lacking in extracurricular activities like sports, dancing or anything creative for that matter, she adds.

Speaking about the psychological conditions of students she shares, A 13-year-old kid was recently brought to me by his mother because of his erratic behaviour and loss of appetite. His mother complained that he was always irritated and physically aggressive with his brother.

High pressure from schools drives children crazy. This is no way to live a life; at least parents should understand and allow their children to participate in other creative activities, she opines.

She also says that many parents are still unaware about their childrens addictions and weaknesses, and even if they do know about it, they are unwilling to bring their kid to a psychologist.

If education doesnt begin at home then these psychological conditions will haunt the individual in their adulthood as well. Many software employees are also facing these behavioural issues at an early age.

To get away from their day-to-day deadlines and work pressures they divulge into alcohol, smoking and drugs, opines the doctor.

By: Tera Sneha Reddy

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For children, it's beyond psychedelics - The Hans India - The Hans India

The future is bright; its colours, sights and sounds more vibrant and steeped in a better understanding of our consciousness and its brought to you by the wonders of psychedelic science. It is a field of study with a storied history that is experiencing a renascence as countries around the world and their governments begin to open their minds.

For those who have experienced the wonders of psychedelics, the benefits they can offer are clear. Its easy to explain that elated sense of being and self to someone who is already an enthusiast, but for the rest of the world science is the key. That is why researchers in this field want to bring science and psychedelics together, as they once were, and in the past several years they have done just that.

Within the US the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is on the verge of receiving FDA approval of its MDMA-assisted therapy for patients with PTSD.

A year ago MAPS wrapped up six trails conducted in the US, Israel, Switzerland and Canada in which treatment resistant PTSD was treated with MDMA inspired therapy.

Its proven to be an immensely effective form of treatment which is on track for wide-scale approval by 2021. The latest study, which included 107 participants, found that 66 percent of patients no longer qualified for PTSD after just two sessions. In their previousstudy that number was 83 percent.

The success of these trials has launched MAPS into the final phase of FDA approval in which they will continue their clinical trials as well as provide training for up to 100 therapists to be certified in administering MDMA-assisted therapy.

Brad Burge, Director of Strategic Communications for MAPS, insists that the FDA and even the DEA have been extremely cooperative with their studies. Hes seen a great reception for these alternative therapies from the scientific community and their patients and expects greater acceptance as the studies continue.

I think that the momentum is strong enough and the need for alternatives is great enough that any sort of counter marketing that big pharmaceuticals would do would probably only make what were doing more popular. Says Burge.

As with anything, there are also potential risks, but Burge notes that a large part of the governments acceptance of their studies has come from the careful procedures and practices theyve adopted. Safe storage, in house administration of drugs and most of all an openness in communication with the patient.

As far as any sort of addictive potential, Brad says, there is zero evidence that a couple of administrations of MDMA in a therapeutic setting will lead to any form of dependence.

Of the 107 patients that have been treated by MAPS, only a couple have sought out the substance outside of their scheduled therapies, those patients were compelled by the results MDMA provided yet they later admitted as Burge also insists that the therapy is a crucial element.

As a result of such studies, MDMA is likely to go the way of marijuana, in that its medicinal usefulness will eventually lead to widespread acceptance.

But one psychedelic which still has a long way to go in quelling the public stigma is ironically one which could also do a lot to ease peoples fears: LSD. Widely unknown to the public, the experience of LSD is often thought of as a hallucination-inducing brain-melter. Even film portrayals of acid trips have had a difficult time capturing the true experience.

Among those who have taken the substance, it is often thought to have a positive transformational effect in their lives, especially when as with MDMA it is administered properly and in a comfortable environment. Yet the difficulty in conveying the experience has made LSD one of the most feared drugs in the world.

Much of that fear has to do with a lack of information, and short inviting the whole world to experience it for themselves in the style of Timothy Leary, rigorous scientific study is the next best way to lift that veil.

Thats where the Beckley Foundation of the UK comes in. Their organization, which aims to bring science back into the world of psychedelics, is helping us all gain a better understanding of both the substance and our own consciousness.

When we last spoke with Amanda Feilding, co-director and founder of Beckley, they had been testing the effects of psilocybin on depression with incredible results. Now she says her focus is mainlyon LSD.

Poor LSD is still not acceptable, Feilding says with a sense of despair in her voice that only someone who truly understands the substance could convey, theres still a terrible taboo on those letters.

Having lived in the world of psychedelics since their heyday Amanda has seen the effect in science, medicine and the counterculture of the 60s. She has also seen a decades long misinformation campaign which has stigmatized recreational users and the years of scientific research with them.

In the 1950s and 60s, more than 3000 research papers were published on the effects of LSD. Among these early researchers was Ronnie Sandison, whose work at Powick Hospital for the mentally ill had become recognized around the world as a breakthrough in the treatment of mental illness until LSDs association with recreational users forced the compound into obscurity.

Even the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson lauded LSD as an aid in curing alcoholism a possible use which the Beckley foundation is also looking into. Wilson who famously believed that alcoholics required a spiritual awakening in order to overcome their addiction also believed that LSD could hold the key to that awakening.

Since its founding in 1998, the Beckley Foundation has sought to revive this field of study in the name of the public good it could do. With the use of modern scientific methods and brain imaging technologies Amanda and her team can now bring scientific backing to the experiences that underground users have known for years.

In 2016, the Beckley/Imperial Research Programme produced the first images of the brain on LSD. The study was conducted on 20 volunteers, whose brains were scanned using fMRI and magnetoencephalography (MEG) after receiving either 75 micrograms of LSD or placebo.

The images, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, displayed a luminous picture of the brain in which the Default Mode Network (DMN) had been dissolved. In other words, the rigid wiring of the brain had been freed up to enable greater connectivity. This explains the increased creativity that users experience, but it also allows for therapy to be more effective.

It shakes the rigidity of the setting, Amada explains, Mental and psychological disorder like depression, addiction, PTSD are set on hyperactivity in parts of the Default Mode Network, which is like the ego, its set into a rigid and negative setting.

For recreational users, the images provided an visual representation of the illusive ego death. Its something of a mythologized holy grail of psychedelics or a state of nirvana that is now better understood by looking at the way in which LSD affects the brain.

Ego death or ego disintegration is really the same as the flip side of the expression of the mystical experience. Amada says, The ego is basically the control mechanism to keep the status quo as it is, when that diminishes in its activity there is a flood of other activity which is rather like when the cat is away the mice will play.

That level of free-form thought can be quite overwhelming, especially when the average trip could take up to8-10 hours. This is why Amanda emphasizes that the proper setting and in the case of Beckleys studies a therapeutic guide is important to ensure a positive experience. She also believes that maintaining a regular blood glucose level is an effective way to maintain clarity and stave off a bad trip. Its one theory she aims to test in upcoming studies.

Among itss newest ventures, the Beckley/Imperial Research Programme will undergo the worlds first microdosing study to investigate reports that minor doses of around 15 micrograms increase productivity while still allowing the user to function normally. The study will have volunteers playthe ancient Chinese strategy game of Go, with one player having taken a microdose and the other a placebo, to investigate whether small doses of LSD can enhance intuitive pattern recognition and creativity. All of which is to increase our understanding of LSD, rather than base our knowledge on years of misinformation.

As a once recreational user Amanda is aware of the stigma that can affect its widespread acceptance, but also believes that there are immense benefits in bringing it out of the dark.

I think LSD has gone through a great black tunnel of publicity. Shesays, In many ways I think one can say that its the most adaptable and positive of all the drugs because what it does is expand the inner person.

For her, Beckleys work is about a much more than having a way to legally access a drug again. Its a social duty if you like, its much easier to just take LSD when youre not having to change the world.

In fact, LSD is quite available already and even relatively inexpensive on the black market, but the point of psychedelic science is education rather than access. Understanding these feared substances and the way they affect the body can ultimately help us to provide the safest possible methods of using them. Whether it be recreational of medicinal, more information is always better than propaganda, but wherever the future of psychedelics leads, its sure to be a more enlightened place.

To support the research of MAPS and the Beckley Foundation visit the links below:

MAPS

Beckley

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Modern psychedelic science is reviving lost research and finding new cures - The Plaid Zebra (blog)

At some point, humankind will look back and figure out what to make of our heavy usage of psychedelics at music festivals. Despite the fact that mega-events provide probably the worst atmosphere for astral introspection, many peoples first mushroom or acid trips still happen at mobbed festivals or maybe the hardest trip theyll ever trip will take place at one. Hello, 21-year-old me at Reggae on the River. (I am not ashamed.)

The ritual of ingestion is often articulated in traditional cultures by a shaman or a guide well-read in the ways of certain substances. But in contrast with ayahuasca ceremonies, at Coachella or Burning Man psychedelic use is presided over by musicians on a stage set thousands of people away or by a friend who is just as dehydrated and medicated as you are or no one, when a overpowering wave of crowd splinters a crew.

Lacking a safe container to trip in, psychedelic complications are bound to happen in the haphazard setting of festival madness. Psychedelic users who become violent or otherwise unresponsive to official suggestion via a difficult trip can wind up at the hospital or worse, jail. Neither place is likely to alleviate the paranoia or fear theyre experiencing.

Drug research and education organization MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association For Psychedelic Studies) stepped into this disconnect when it raised the first incarnation of its Zendo Project at Burning Man in 2012. The on-site counseling program complimented MAPS larger mission to advocate for the therapeutic uses of psychedelics. The groups work often focuses on the way that drugs can be used to open up healing emotional pathways, such as a 2016 study that looked at the effects of MDMA on people suffering from PTSD.

The term psychedelic means mind manifesting, which means that our conscious mind becomes aware of subconscious things, says Sara Gael, MAPS director of harm reduction and Zendo Project organizer who has been involved since the year the program came to life and is a firm believer in the benefits associated with responsible usage of the drugs. Thats what therapy is about, exploring the subconscious and the aspects of self that society has taught us to repress.

In the uncertainty of festival chaos, worries about personal sanity or safety can complicate a psychedelic trip, rendering it all but impossible to stay open to the painful realizations that psychedelics can trigger. The Zendos infrastructure responds to this construct; volunteers erect a tent where triggered festival attendees can rehydrate, lie down, and/or snack, in addition to connecting with trained souls ready to sit with them through any threatening visions or panic-inducing paranoias.

Some of the more challenging cases we experience are people who are really frightened, who might then become aggressive, or try to run away, or feel really lost or paranoid, says Gael. Those are some of the more difficult situations to work with because were trying to keep that person physically safe. Thats why we work in collaboration with medical and security.

Today, the Zendo Project has helped 2,900 people at large events, teaming up with security and medical festival staff so that attendees receive the best treatment for their particular situation. Given the projects success, it is pleasant to imagine a larger diversity of gatherings in which Zendo-like harm reduction efforts were present. Currently, the program is limited to Burning Man and its regional events from South Africa to San Diego, in addition to the other transformational endeavors (Lightning in a Bottle, Costa Rican yoga and spirituality fest Envision.)

The Zendo Project is looking to expand, and is currently in the middle of a fundraising drive. And MAPS just publishedThe Manual of Psychedelic Support, a thick tome available for free download.

The manual outlines the logistics behind setting up a Zendo Project-like space, not to mention the inclusion of a fascinating history of harm reduction in modern Western festival culture (the original Woodstock festivals Hog Farmers, founded by Wavy Gravy, are considered pioneers in the area) and the Zendo Projects guiding principles for interactions with those on tough trips: creating a safe space, sitting not guiding, talking through and not down, and difficult is not the same as bad, in Gaels summarization.

Gael is quick to note that the core principles can even be self-applied, if you can remember them should you enter into a difficult trip yourself. When asked for a couple quick pointers for those finding themselves on shaky psychedelic ground, she ventured: What is coming up, try to turn into it rather than away from it, because what we resist, persists. Try to find a safe space away from noise with people that you trust. Find someone who is able to sit with you even if theyre not formally trained, who is not freaking out. Trying to connect with your breath and body, connecting with nature can be really helpful, finding a tree.

She adds that if youre still feeling shaken up even after youve become sober, MAPS has published a list of therapists who are educated in psychedelic integration, or the practice of connecting the dots between psychedelias half-processed self realizations.

It is clear that modern day Western society takes psychedelics under much different circumstances than the cultures that previously utilized the substances. The ritual of loading ones car up with friends and alcohol en route to Electric Daisy Carnival has little in common with the temazcals and sacrament of a Navajo peyote ceremony.

MAPS makes it clear that as part of a harm reduction strategy, the Zendo Project simply responds to the reality that this is the current situation, says Gael. And that despite policy, [psychedelic usage] is going to continue. After nearly 50 years of practice, however, new forms of psychedelic guidance in certain modern day sites of cultural ritual are being developed a nascent safety net for the psychedelic voyagers of today.

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Expanding consciousness - 48 Hills

What is the value of awe and mystic experience? For starters, it reduces the me that wants things done for it, or at least offers temporary relief from this grasping me. Mystic experience, whatever links it occasions, offers a kind of holiday from ordinary reality. In this expansive space, the world can be felt as less self-centered, and more inter-connected. In many spiritual traditions, this shift is called awakening, or at least the start of it. Awakening is not an entertainment (lets get high) but a jewel (lets get real).

We have Aldous Huxley to thank for one of the first post-war accounts of a day transformed by a psychedelic (it was mescaline). Borrowing from William Blake, he called his book The Doors of Perception (1954). What he described was things seen in a state of awe. Many other great writers have explored the phenomenon of mystical experience occasioned by what a friend of mine calls mindful molecules, and some of their work will be listed near the end of this piece, reports subsequent to Huxleys.

These writers were interested in classic psychedelics not to alleviate or cure a health condition or reduce anxiety, much less to create a colorful internal light show, but rather to induce a state of awe Why?

They all refer to the ability of classis psychedelics to occasion mystical experience (or in a cautious phrase in a report about psilocybin, mystical-type experience). Professor Ralph Hood had not yet developed his mysticism scale in time for Wassons 1954 account of a psilocybin mushroom ceremony near Oaxaca, but the first word about the experience in Wassons account was, awestruck.

One interpretation of an experience of awe could be to reinforce a religious allegiance, whether, for example, Buddhist. Christian, Hindu, or Islamic. In each off these traditions, an allegiance has been strengthened by a mystic experience with or without the use of a mindful molecule. In this article, however, rather than get involved in theology, I want to stay with the experience occasioned by a classic psychedelic, prior to any interpretation of it.

We can all agree that the experience is radically different than ordinary reality, causing a habitual tendency to call it sacred and to assume it descends upon us from, or connects us with, another realm. However, Occams Razor suggests that were making a giant assumption if we assert that something very different from ordinary reality is necessarily transcendental. It might be, but it might equally represent access to a function of the human brain that is ordinarily absent or hidden.

As a rhetorical strategy, the claim of access to a realm in the bailiwick of spiritual leaders has some advantages. In the U.S. our idea of religious freedom might extend to the use of classic psychedelics. So far, this argument has succeeded only in the case of the Native American Church, which legally uses peyote in its ceremonies for hundreds of thousands of worshippers from one race,, and of a couple of offshoots of syncretic Brazilian churches (offshoots both located in the U.S. West).

Our courts seem to respect antiquity of practice. The native Americans have been doing their peyote ritual for a long time, and the Brazilian churches are linked to ancient shamanic practices involving ayahuasca in the Amazon basin. According to The Road to Eleusis, many of the ideas of Western civilization arose from people initiated through an annual ceremony that appears to have featured a group envisioning induced by a psychedelic agent in the kykeon and that continued for as long as two thousand years. A pause since the fourth century does not alter the antiquity of the practice.

According to the Road to Eleusis, the mysteries could be resumed now and offer benefits to our culture, as they did to the culture of ancient Greece and to initiates from the Roman empire. In a word, they could become again a part of normal life.

Now for the bibliographic note:

Appreciation for awe has appeared in a string of writings after Huxley on spiritual uses of psychedelics. Examples include:

At the time of the writings cited, Wasson was a New York banker and a mycologist; Watts, a British clergyman transposed to California; Smith, a philosopher of religion and former professor at various universities including MIT; Forte, a teacher and an editor; Hofmann, a chemist at Sandoz in Basel and the discoverer of LSD; Ruck, a classicist at Boston University;; Doblin, the founder of MAPS; Badiner, a student of Buddhism and an editor; Griffiths, a professor at Johns Hopkins.

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What Has Awe Done for Me Lately? - HuffPost

David Luke, a University of Greenwich psychology lecturer and researcher of high weirdness, has a new book out with the compelling title of Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience. Based on the blurb, it sounds like an absolute trip:

A psychonautic scientific trip to the weirdest outposts of the psychedelic terrain, inhaling anything and everything relevant from psychology, psychiatry, parapsychology, anthropology, neuroscience, ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, biochemistry, religious studies, cultural history, shamanism and the occult along the way.

Staring the strange straight in the third eye this eclectic collection of otherworldly entheogenic research delivers a comprehensive and yet ragtaglledy scientific exploration of synaesthesia, extra-dimensional percepts, inter-species communication, eco-consciousness, mediumship, possession, entity encounters, near-death and out-of-body experiences, psi, alien abduction experiences and lycanthropy. Essentially, its everything you ever wanted to know about weird psychedelic experiences, but were too afraid to ask

"Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience" (via Daily Grail)

In Paper Girls, the celebrated comics creator Brian K Vaughan (Saga, Y: The Last Man, etc) teams up with Cliff Chiang to tell a story thats like an all-girl Stranger Things, with time-travel.

To call Shopsins a Greenwich Village institution was to understate something profound and important and weird and funny: Shopsins (first a grocery store, later a restaurant) was a kind of secret reservoir of the odd and wonderful and informal world that New York City once represented, in the pre-Trumpian days of Sesame Street and Times Square sleaze: Tamara Shopsin grew up in Shopsins, and Arbitrary Stupid Goal is her new, no-muss memoir, is at once charming and sorrowing, a magnificent time-capsule containing the soul of a drowned city.

There are three more stops on my tour for Walkaway: tomorrow at San Diego Comic-Con, next weekend at Defcon 25 in Las Vegas, and August 10th at the Burbank Public Library.

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New book about psychedelics and weird human experiences - Boing Boing

The official U.S. response to classic psychedelics has been primarily a defense of existing normality. The response was aroused, for example, by the drop out kicker in Tim Learys famous motto (turn on, tune in, drop out). It was shaped by perceived links to social disarray caused by claims of equality from blacks, women, people dismissed as shiftless, and foreigners who resented intervention (such as in Vietnam).

My own introduction to the drug issue came from a college student when I was a teaching assistant at Stanford in a course on personality theory. It was back in the late 1960s. I was told this pill is really great, this student reported being assured at a frat party. Swallow it and get ready for a really good time. He didn't even ask what the pill was said to be, much less seek data on what it actually contained. He just swallowed. LSD was soon made illegal. (As we will see below, this was far from an ideal set and setting.)

When U.S. research on psychedelics was allowed to resume, decades later, it was largely for projects that explored medicinal uses, which aim to restore a person toyou guessed itnormality. Has most of society been afraid not only of party drugs, but also of the experience of awe? Awe is regarded as okay for the occasional mystic, who may even be elevated to sainthood (for example, Francis of Assisi, after whom the current Pope chose to be named), but it arouses suspicion when people talk to birds. Thats weird.

Nobody wants vast criminal syndicates, users do not want the risk of impure drugs (with dangerous molecules sometimes being sold as Ecstasy), nobody wants their children thrown in prison for smoking pot while good burghers drive their cars to a bar to get plastered, nobody wants to pay higher taxes to keep non-violent young people locked up, and researchers do not want prohibitions on research about amazing substances, even if they were not widely used. But anything in defense of normality.

The big question is whether were ever going to find a way to integrate awe into lives that are otherwise normal, to tolerate a regime under which people can, if they want, suspend ordinary reality in a safe and beneficial way. At least since 1954, when Aldous Huxleys Doors of Perception gave us that brilliant writers account of his trip on a classic psychedelic, explorers have tried to bridge the gap between their direct experience and the views of the majority who werent burdened by personal encounters with awe but who, with the help of the media, knew what they believed.

Huxleys spirit was put in a religious context by Huston Smith, who spoke of cleansing those Blakeian doors.

More recently, people who feel that a therapeutic trip has been one of the most important experiences of their lifetime or have found mega benefits in micro-dosing have adopted various rhetorical strategies to try to communicate their discovery. Im reminded of this attempt, which has now continued for a half century or so, by two recent books, The Psychedelic Renaissance (2012) by Ben Sessa, and A Really Good Day (2017) by Ayelet Waldman.

An English physician and researcher, Sessa adopts the strategy of identifying with his profession and searching for ways that classic psychedelics (and MDMA) can help psychiatrists reduce unnecessary suffering. At the same time, he wonders aloud why, after scorning hippies, he has adopted many of their values and insights. Then he returns to the sobriety of his status in society, his caseload, and research based on double-blind evidence.

Waldman adopts a different strategy. Professionally, she is a writer. She is also a mother of four. She suffers from depression and anxiety. She had heard that taking a tenth of a normal dose of LSD might help. She followed a protocol described by Jim Fadiman, who began researching psychedelics as a graduate student when LSD-25 was still legal. This accounts for Waldmans subtitle: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life.

Assured of a supply for a month of three-day cycles, Waldman supposedly wonders whether even a micro-dose will kill her or, if not, drive her crazy, with ghastly flashbacks. Despite having been a volunteer for the Drug Policy Alliance, which works against the war on drugs, and in spite of teaching a law school course in the area, Waldman says she started her personal experiment with fear-based stories widely held in our society, inculcated by the misinformation our government has propagated for decades. She then educates her readers with the quite different facts.

So these are the first two rhetorical strategies: identify with your audience (I thought so, too, but boy, was I mistaken) or identify with a valued profession (Im a doctor, I just want to find medicines that work).

One way to make drugs almost acceptable is to present them as potential medicines, under the control of a highly regarded corps of professionals. Can they treat PTSD, as in the studies of MDMA as an adjunct to therapy, studies conducted by the Mithoefers? Can they ease end-of-life fear, as in the project run by Charles Grob? Can they deal with addiction to alcohol and other legal drugs open to abuse?

Another strategy is to argue that, under the Constitution, liberty includes the right to alter, at least temporarily, ones own consciousness: you may not have the freedom to encourage or guide others, but an individual in our society does retain the power to decide what to put in his or her own body, especially if its been shown to be safer than substances sold and imbibed freely.

We have Jim Fadiman to thank not only for Ayelet Waldmans experiment but also for other effects of his own book, The Psychedelic Explorers Guide: Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys (2011). In contrast to my student reporting on unknown drugs handed around at a frat party, Fadiman describes how to do it right. Experienced people advise: (a) ingest a psychedelic only if you are mentally balanced, (b) get pure substances, (c) take a correct dose, (d) form a positive intention for the trip (and then be willing to let go of it), (e) find and stay in a welcoming non-clinical setting, (f) have an experienced and non-intrusive guide, (g) lie down or find a comfortable chair, (h) listen to music instead of operating machinery or communicating with people outside the room. Of course, prohibition makes it difficult to get pure substances, and current law would make any guide an accessory.

Another rhetorical strategy was inherent in the 1960s project on psychedelics and creativity led by Professor Willis Harman. This project gave a classic psychedelic to professionals who were working with resistant challenges in their fields. It discovered benefits before the project was cut off when the government decided to make LSD illegal. That was in 1968 (the same year Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot, Bobby Kennedy won the California primary and was then assassinated, and Richard Nixon nabbed the Presidency).

If creativity is not enough to win approval, how about a hypothesis about evolution of the species, that it was psilocybin that helped convert primates into archaic humans? Along with many other speculations in the course of his career, Terence McKenna explored this possibility around 1992. What was his motive? If we could import into straight society, almost as a Trojan horse, the idea that these psychedelic compounds and plants are the catalyst that called forth humanness out of animal nature, if we could entertain this as a possibility, he said, it would alter societys efforts to control and eradicate these substances.

In contrast to proposing bold but unprovable theories, recent researchers looked at neurological data, gathered in large part by methods not yet available when classic psychedelics became widespread in the U.S. For example, Robin Carhart-Harris at Imperial College in London used magnetic resonance imagining to map effects in the brain.

Data about spiritual experience was reported in research led by Professor Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins, as expressed in the classic paper, Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences The investigators focused not on an illness that was to be alleviated but rather on an enhancement of ordinary life.

To summarize the rhetorical strategies cited here:

There are other rhetorical strategies, but these are enough to illustrate the persistence and ingenuity of people who are still seeking, after a half century of prohibition, to bridge the gap between firm beliefs of the general public and data developed, against official resistance, by research both here and abroad.

When fear is aroused, as in the war on terror, good public policy is swept aside and we tend not to look at facts.

In the case of psychedelics, what will work? We are encouraged to be patient, as was Martin Luther King, Jr., by white colleagues at the time of the Montgomery demonstrations. In response, King asked whether the time since the Civil War was long enough to wait.

The prohibition against psychedelics has lasted about half a century. Critics of the fear-response decry the losses: the healing that has been lost, the abuse of liberty, the loss of research, of creativity, of experiences of awe.

One of the U.S. organizations that has worked persistently and ingeniously during most of this period of prohibition has been the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), founded by Rick Doblin, a graduate of Harvards Kennedy School. MAPS has held conferences on psychedelic science, sponsored research here and abroad, published a newsletter, and tried to educate the political establishment.

Other leading organizations include the Heffter Research Institute, which gathered key academics in this field, Amanda Feildings Beckley Foundation in the U.K., Bob Jesses Council for Spiritual Practices, the archives at Purdue University (Psychoactive Substances Research Collection), and the Vaults of Erowid.

On the model of cannabis, perhaps it would be helpful to establish medical uses, then move on to what is called recreational use, a term that refers to all uses not controlled solely by physicians but freely available to the public. The term recreational is prejudicial like the term drugs, which fails to distinguish between classic psychedelics and addictive or otherwise harmful drugs, such as heroin.

For example, there is nothing recreational about the experience of awe or of wonder. The term trivializes what can happen. Drugs are taken not only to get high or cure a health condition, but also to take a holiday from the confines of ordinary reality, as in studying a textbook, buying a house, raising children, serving as a professional, and so forth. What if, instead of an ill-conceived and unworkable prohibition, we focused our ingenuity on making the opportunity for good trips part of a normal life?

One pioneer who sketched this possibility was Gordon Wasson, a U.S. banker who made a famous trip to a tribal area of Mexico and experienced a psilocybin mushroom ceremony with a local shaman, and wrote about it in Life magazine (in1957, a few years after Huxleys book). What was his first reaction after the mushroom took effect? I felt awestruck.

Later he co-authored a book, The Road to Eleusis (1978), working with Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who synthesized and then, in 1943, discovered the mental effects of LSD, and with a professor of classics named Carl Ruck. They proposed that the ancient ceremony at Eleusis included a psychedelic. (No one knows for sure because the participants were sworn to secrecy.) The point is, the ritual was not counter-cultural but part of the culture, not for everybody, but not considered a challenge to the dominant way of life.

Perhaps our culture will accept the value of psychedelics through demonstrations of their usefulness in alleviating suffering, through medical applications. But it was observers such as Wasson who understood that their most extraordinary value was experiencing awe and that this opportunity could become part of a normal life.

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Psychedelics and Normality - HuffPost

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Reasons to Consider Trying Psychedelics FoxWeekly The word psychedelic roughly translates to mind revealing. It is derived from the Greek words psyche and deloun. It is a term used to refer to any phenomena that alters a man's state of consciousness, cognition or perception. The psychedelics we ...

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